


you know you better than this

by DJF (DJFero)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, In which m!Lavellan is a companion, In which m!Lavellan is a self-sacrificing idiot, M/M, More characters/pairings TBA, Multi, and Dorian is horrified and ruins everything, and betrothed to f!Lavellan, rating will probs go up, with Cole's blessing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 20:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3263591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJFero/pseuds/DJF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem isn't that he adores her, or that she adores him. It isn't that no one can stop talking about how charming they are together. It isn't that he's so endearingly crass and blunt and stubborn and--</p><p>It isn't even that Dorian wants him.</p><p>It's that he's going to marry her -- bond, whatever -- willfully, permanently, and he doesn't want her.</p><p>He doesn't want women at all, and no one's even noticed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you know you better than this

**Author's Note:**

> Did anyone else wonder how Dorian got to Redcliffe if he didn't go with his Tevinter buddies?
> 
> Anyone else really amused by the idea of him roughing it alone in the woods on his way through Ferelden?
> 
> No?
> 
> Just me?

_Felix,_ the letter begins, written pointedly on the back of a Fereldan map now heavily covered by notations in Dorian's cramped but flowing script. These range from brief criticisms of the cartographer's sense of scale -- one can say a lot with a well placed four-letter word -- to a plethora of new symbols. One of these is a jolly roger which crops up more than a dozen times and which, according to a recent addition to the map's legend, means "fuck all kinds of duck."

_En route to Redcliffe, per your ~~imposition~~ request. Based solely on the name, and as an advanced exercise in deductive reasoning, I am going out on a limb and presuming I'll know I'm there when:_

_I. I see cliffs._

_II. They’re red._

_I don't even know where to begin with these southerners. I think I can call them quaint. Is quaint a good word, do you think, or is that not patronizing enough?_

_Anyway, I'll be a day or two longer than my initial estimate. I've had to backtrack and go out of my way I don't know how many times -- count the skulls on enclosed map, I think, should give you a fair idea._

Dorian pauses to stretch his back out of the hunch writing has gotten him into, seated with prim reluctance on a fallen tree and using his grimoire as a hard surface. The closure of Redcliffe's lakeside docks has lengthened even further the meandering route he's taken to avoid the widespread conflict, and now the revised plan is to curve south near the Crossroads and then north again to the village gates. There, he's been assured, a trusted associate of Felix's will see him without delay and, more importantly, without unwanted notice into the village proper.

He just has to get there in one piece. Preferably within the year, but with madness broken out across the quaint Ferelden countryside he's learning not to ask too much.

 _I suppose it's to be expected that even_ avoiding _this mage/Templar kerfuffle would be harrowing; if it were as easy as telling them both their dresses are pretty, there'd be nothing of interest here for the Venatori or the Inquisition, and then_ we'd _not be here, yes? Still, it's all terribly inconvenient for even the most handsome and intrepid altus on a noble quest._

_Alas, such is the curse of the terminally competent._

_Remind me to regale you with the tale of my first encounter with the southern mage-hunters, by the way. I was entirely unprepared for Templars not only willing but able to do their jobs -- perhaps not to do them well enough to warrant my breaking a proper sweat, but I digress._

The little hillside lake (Luther or Lucas, something of the like; he can't be bothered to remember what it's named) could probably be called idyllic, perhaps even picturesque, but only by inbred farmhand yokels with vague aspirations of poetic greatness and not enough worldly experience to know that elsewhere are bodies of water large enough pissing in them doesn't raise the tide. Still, it's pretty enough for what it is, brown waters sparkling in the late afternoon light, disturbed only by the trout making little eddies in its shallows and by the tromping of thirsty rams who, from a great enough distance -- perhaps a mile or two -- could almost appear majestic grazing over the verdant weeds.

Green and brown, green and brown; all of Ferelden is green and brown, and he's never seen so much green and brown in one place. The novelty of it is almost enough to make up for how altogether drab it is.

Almost.

A snorting ram grabs Dorian's attention, and he glances up to watch as it splish-splashes along the water's edge some thirty feet away. From here, he almost can't make out the shit and mud matting its fur or the preponderance of flies basking in its majestic odor. Nature at its finest: _far away from him_. There's a flash in the air he thinks for one instant is one of the many local grasshoppers catching the sun mid-flight, a sharp whistling sound he mistakes at first for a bird's call.

It's followed by the crack of impact and the ram collapses in a heap with a quivering arrow bristling from just above its eye.

Dorian very carefully _doesn't_ leap to his feet. Instead he goes very, very still, because if a deadly archer on the trail hasn't noticed him already, there's no need to go announcing himself -- at least not until he can see where the answering arrow will come from. He considers the possibility that it's a simple hunter, not hostile, but knows not to bet his life on it. At a time like this, a robed, staff-carrying man startling an armed civilian is just asking for it.

Magic thrums tingling-ready at the tips of his fingers as he eyes the fallen beast and traces the trajectory of the arrow to the northeast. A tracker he is not, but he's also not stupid. Even from here, he can see the slightly downward angle of the missile penetrating the ram's skull, can tell that it came from above; but at only about thirty degrees off from perpendicular, it wasn't that far above, certainly not from the ridges over the waterfall. Closer than that. This information goes a long way toward narrowing the archer's position down to a likely cluster of trees not far from the shore with a line of sight to the ram -- and to Dorian.

Faint movement catches his eye, and within sun-dappled shadows he can just make out the shape of a man. A man crouched in a tree, balanced easily on a precarious-looking pine bough. A man holding a bow low and loose near his bent knees. A man looking _right back at Dorian_. Very, very slowly, the mage rises to his feet, raises his hands in a conciliatory gesture, a barrier spell already churning imperceptibly beneath flesh and bone as he endeavors to whisper the incantation quickly while barely moving his lips.

He's nearly finished, _nearly_ , when the archer pulls some magic of his own. He raises his bow, nocks and fires an arrow apparently conjured from thin air all in one fluid, sudden move that both begins and ends in the space between two heartbeats and leaves a whistling arrow bearing down unerringly on Dorian.

His life doesn't flash before his eyes, of course it doesn't. _Thank the Maker_ it doesn't. If he's got to die he'd much rather his last thoughts not be about all the bullshit that lead up to this moment, thank you kindly. Mostly there's a surreal moment of numbness, the realization that that arrow is coming on both entirely too fast and terrifyingly slow; he could almost make out the spin of its fletching in the air and has time enough to think _Well, shit. This is embarrassing._ but not enough to do anything to stop it or get out of the way. The arrow is right there screaming toward him and his heart is roaring against his rib cage but he's not feeling anything, doesn't have time enough to be frightened by impending death or upset at the indignity and the unfairness of it all.

Then it whistles right past his ear, and someone behind him yelps.

The shock that he could have died (so _suddenly_ , at the hands of a _backwater hunter_ in an _unguarded moment_ , with nearly _two decades' worth of magical training under his belt **and immense power at his fingertips**_ ) has yet to break, and then there will be the momentary shock that he _didn't_ die, and until then there's not room enough to truly think or process what's happening. But he hasn't survived thus far by luck alone and even as his sharp mind struggles to stutter back up to speed he's moving, rolling to the side, his grimoire forgotten by the log where he'd sat.

First things first: Out of the line of fire.

Turn around, take stock of the situation.

Templars coming up behind him; fifty feet or more but closing fast.

Three on their feet: two in lighter armor, bow left, pair of daggers right; heavy armor and tower shield, front center.

One down: prone on back and staring dumbly at an unexpected arrow discovered just beside sternum.

The hunter responsible: now at Dorian's back.

The Templar archer is already moving, strafing behind trees but realizing at the same time Dorian does that she's having to make a tactical decision. Does she use the trees as cover from the hunter, sacrificing line of sight to the mage, or climb a nearby boulder to flank the mage from high ground, leaving her own flank open to the other archer? She hesitates, caught between these options, and Dorian wastes no time: he finishes the barrier spell with barely enough mana to rattle off another, burning-ozone smell sharp on the air as lightning cracks fast and flashes between the trees to catch the Templar archer and arc onward to the shield bearer.

He'd nearly forgotten the fellow with the daggers. The third Templar dashes up out of the shadows on his right, blades flashing, right as he's expended himself of mana. Dorian turns, holds his staff up vertical to catch a high left-hand swipe short of his throat, twirls the staff clockwise to knock aside the subsequent right-hand jab at his navel. The Templar keeps pressing, pushing him back one step and then another. It puts him closer and closer to the recovered Templar archer, reducing even further the threat of the arrows she glances off his depleting barrier, but it also prevents him dealing with the steady approach of the shieldsman. That won't do. He slams his staff down into the ground, blasting the prowler back a few feet in a crackling wave of lightning, and turns with a wide slash of the bladed end at the archer. The leather of her armor takes the bite off the gash he leaves in her collarbone, but she's stunned for a moment.

 _Where is the hunter in all of this?_ he has time to wonder. Then the shieldsman is upon him, but the magic is singing under his fingertips again. He falls back, almost stumbling over himself as he tries to get breathing room enough to incant fear of the Maker into the bastard's bones. He almost has it, too, tastes the last word on the tip of his tongue before the prowler moves quick in his peripheral.

A wave of nausea washes over him, winds him, casts him down to his knees under the weight of vertigo, and the magic fizzles away at the tip of his tongue with a taste like spitting embers.

The shieldsman bears down, sword arm raised overhead. Dorian vaguely hears vehement swearing, wonders inanely who's cussing in Tevene before realizing with numb embarrassment that it's him.

The blade hangs in the air for one awful moment, like a portrait.

_Whistle._

_**CRACK**._

The Templar stumbles forward on his feet, catches himself with a curse, and half-turns. Dorian spots the arrow jutting out of a joint between pauldron and cuirass before he spots, beyond that, almost exactly opposite of where he'd started, the hunter: half-hidden in branches once more.

"Rhett, get that damned archer!" the shieldsman growls manfully through teeth grit in what must be no small amount of pain. His shield arm sags and he steps back once to catch a breath and steel himself even as he transfers his gaze back to Dorian, reluctant to let his more immediate quarry out of sight. His archer -- Rhett, apparently -- rallies herself and readies another arrow.

Dorian's eyes linger briefly on the hunter as painfully, hatefully slowly the nausea abates. Another arrow nocked, but he takes his time aiming this one, slowly, slowly, tempting fate as the Templar gets her own bead on him. The prowler closes in again on Dorian's right.

With a whistle like music to Dorian's ears, the hunter looses his arrow with force enough to knock the slippery dagger-wielding bastard flat on his ass. He doesn't get back up.

Dorian pushes to his feet, strength enough to support him finally flooding back, and raises his staff. Four things happen at once:

Dorian unleashes another crack of electricity between (sorry day for them) the same two Templars who tasted it before, the shieldsman biting back a shout.

The Templar archer releases her arrow, singing toward the hunter.

The hunter gathers a handful of arrows too quickly for Dorian to follow and releases them wildly on the two remaining Templars.

With a muffled cry, the hunter tumbles backward, out of his nest and out of sight.

No time to worry about the fate of his unexpected compatriot, Dorian presses his advantage; it's only the work of a few more frenzied moments and several vengeful flourishes of his staff, blade and magic alike, to finish off two electrified Templars bristling with arrows.

He stands panting in the aftermath with the steaming corpses arrayed around him, baking in their superheated armor, and he savors the surplus of blessedly free time with nothing endangering his life. Plenty of time to consider whether he should or shouldn't approach the spot where the hunter collapsed, whether he should or shouldn't offer aid. The man could still yet be a dangerous, twitchy yokel ready to attack him, if he's in any condition to, and Dorian's had quite enough of that business for today.

Still.

Dorian's conscience wins out against his pragmatism, and he stalls only long enough to collect his grimoire and the unfinished, blood-spattered letter before carefully picking his way toward the tree the hunter had been crouched in, staff held at the ready. He finds blood-slicked grass and not much else.

The telltale creak of a bowstring drawing taut draws his eyes to his left. "Go on, mage. Got nothing for you."

The arrow pointed with lethal accuracy at his heart from a fully drawn bow takes up all of Dorian's attention for several seconds, makes it hard to look past at the man aiming it. Dorian forces himself, nonetheless. An elven man sits in the brush at the foot of a tall pine, one leg splayed listlessly out before him, blood seeping through cotton and dripping down leather where an arrow protrudes from his left shoulder. The attached limb cradles limp over his middle. Clever thing: he's braced the long arm of the bow against a tree root and holds it steady with his bare left foot, arrow resting against his big toe and bowstring drawn back with his right hand. (Is he right-handed? Dorian can't recall which side he drew with before, but it wasn't an important detail at the time. Regardless, he gets the feeling that a marksman of this man's calibre doesn't consider shooting from the wrong side much of a handicap.)

There's a slight tremble about his shoulders, but that hand is steady as a surgeon's despite the awkward angle.

Dorian doesn't relinquish his staff, but he puts on his winning smile as he plants it carefully in the ground and lets his free hand drop slowly to his side and away from his body, fully visible. The elf's eyes dart from hand to staff to face, back again, watching for tensed muscles or waggling fingers and lips that might give away a brewing spell; as such, the mage laboriously forces every muscle in his arms and shoulders to go slack, unassuming. It's an uphill struggle with an arrow beaded on a chiseled chest he's rather attached to. A long, tense moment passes silently between them in which Dorian watches a drop of blood slither down the hunter's forehead from a gash along his hairline. It threatens to drip into his eye, itself already watering with involuntary tears at the pain, but the elf doesn't flinch and his face betrays no fear of the mage before him.

"That's a lot of blood," Dorian says at last, cheerfully and carefully slow. "Probably you should look into patching that hole up before you get light-headed."

The elf grunts. "Thanks for the advice. Never woulda thought of it." Dorian notes with interest that his accent on his husky voice is Fereldan, not Dalish, despite the tattoos writhing under his skin.

"Well, it's hardly altruistic of me. I'd hate you to lose strength in the hand holding that bowstring," he continues, nodding gently to the weapon. "I've seen what happens when you let go."

"Flattery won't put the steel back in my fingers." Blood has begun to drip from his right nostril as well and he snorts it up wetly, unabashed and looking rather as though his face had a run-in with some branches on his way out of the tree. "They _are_ starting to feel weak. Maybe you ought to go before I decide it's not worth the trouble of holding on."

Dorian nods slowly and puts on a show of considering his options. "Maybe I should at that. Or!" He theatrically affects a look of sudden, genius revelation. "Maybe you should gently put that arrow away, and I'll carefully put this staff away, and I can introduce you to this lovely elfroot potion in my acquaintance."

The elf's brows knit and the motion finally shakes that drop of blood free; it pours down into his right eye, which snaps shut automatically. The pained tears finally break loose, one side now tinged pink. The rest of him doesn't flinch to acknowledge the sting, but then, he's probably been quietly bracing himself for the inevitability of it. "I'm no idiot, shem--" Dorian notes 'shem' rather than 'shemlen', the slang of a city elf, "--I'm toothless without the arrow. You're not disarmed so long as you got hands attached."

His sun-baked skin has gone a few shades paler and the tremble is working its way down his elbow, starting up in the bracing leg as well. Dorian isn't sure which is more worrisome. "No, an idiot you certainly are not," he says in the same patronizing tone he might use to tell a child that adding two and two and getting three is a stroke of genius no one's ever thought of before. "Hence why you're aiming an arrow at the mage who _might_ kill you, forestalling attention to the wound that certainly _will_."

The elf's eyes go distant, and Dorian suspects for a moment that he's at last reconsidering the wisdom of his position. He opens his mouth to speak. Acquiescence, perhaps. More arguing, likely.

It's odd. The mage sees the exact moment that the world turns on its head for the injured elf, a split second before the moment the stubborn thing loses consciousness entirely, loosing the arrow at the same time. It whistles inches from Dorian's bicep as he dives to the side and plants itself in a distant redwood with a crack.

Well. This either makes matters easier, or infinitely more difficult. Impossible to tell, just yet.

Dorian moves quickly, dropping his staff and crouching at the prone elf's side. Doesn't matter that barely a minute into his acquaintance he's proven to be a suspicious, mulish arse. He's saved Dorian's life. The mage owes him, and he chafes at the idea of outstanding debts.

(Whether one can owe a debt to a dead man is a matter for philosophical and moral debate -- theological even, if you want to go there -- but as much as it would be easier to let the fellow die and end the matter there, he'd still feel _awfully_ bad about it.)

A hunting knife tucked into wrappings around the elf's calf catches his attention, and he immediately snatches it up and puts it to use cutting clothing away from the injury, grimacing only a little at the sticky blood coating his fingers. He's not squeamish, precisely, and it's not as though he hasn't more than a little of the stuff spattered on his robes already, courtesy of the Templars. Actively smearing your own hands with the stuff is just a different level of disgusting.

The leather jacket gives him some trouble, but the plain cotton tunic beneath it doesn't. It's lucky the poor thing's out cold; he's fairly certain he tugs on the arrow's shaft more than once in the process. In short order he has the injury bare before him, tatters of cloth hanging where they've been cut away from the elf's shoulder, and he waffles for a moment over what to do. _Alright_. He's not a surgeon. But again, he's not an idiot. He's seen what arrowheads look like, triangular and sharp, and it stands to reason that pulling it out will only do more damage. Then again, so will pushing it through, obviously. Which is the lesser of two grievous injuries?

Nothing for it. He wipes his blood-slicked hand a little passive-aggressively on a clean patch of the elf's ruined tunic, grabs a dry section of the arrow shaft, and pushes. It takes four tries and a lot of frustrated swearing before the projectile pierces through the other side, and when none of this rouses so much as a grunt from his impromptu patient, Dorian checks his breathing. Shallow, but persistent. Alright.

Snapping off the arrowhead and then pulling the shaft back out proves a quick procedure -- _Maker_ , he hopes this thing was whittled smoothly; the idea of splinters caught in muscle makes him shudder -- and a quick incantation and a press of his hands on both entry and exit wounds cauterizes them, staunching the blood. The cursory application of a poultice from his pack should prevent the burns themselves from growing infected. He considers pouring a potion down the man's throat to help the healing process, but there's a good chance that would end in a wasted potion and a tragically ironic drowning.

Dorian sits back on his haunches, looking over his work. It's all he can do for now, and it should keep the elf alive a while longer. Distantly, he considers that it's a little awkward to keep thinking of someone whose clothes he's recently cut off his body ( _his tan, lean, muscled body,_ he muses, because while he doesn't particularly _like_ the bastard, and while he's not an opportunistic lech, he's also neither dead nor blind) solely as "the elf." Still, again, there's nothing for it.

The man needs a healer. With luck, there should be someone of the sort at the Crossroads, which he's heard through the grapevine is a refugee camp and which is, luckily, on Dorian's way. Getting him there, however, is going to be quite the feat. Carrying him like a swooning bride through a war zone won't be a picnic; the elf is willowy, but not small -- perhaps, at a guess, a little taller than Dorian himself when standing -- and muscle weighs quite a bit more than fat, of which he appears to be in short supply. Dorian may pride himself on being well fit compared to most mages, but that's still a long trip on foot carrying some fourteen-odd stone of dead weight.

No sooner does he think it than an annoyed snorting and stamping catches his attention. He looks 'round to find a huge, dark-furred hart staring him down. It's not as immediate a threat as a nocked arrow aimed dead at him; his magic could outpace and outmaneuver an angry beast more easily than a flying projectile, any day. Still, the thing is _enormous_ , and it takes him a moment to look past baleful brown eyes to the blanket and saddlebags strapped to the creature's back. And arrows. A spare quiver full of arrows, hung within a long-limbed rider's easy reach.

Ah.

Dorian stands slowly and carefully as the hart paws the ground, head turned to watch him with one eye as suspicious as its master's. The mage tries to assume a non-threatening stance but he's not especially outdoorsy by nature; what, exactly, constitutes non-threatening in the eyes of a colossal, wary stag?

"This... isn't what it looks like?"

The hart snorts.

"You creatures are meant to be intelligent, right?" Dorian asks. He's talking to an oversized deer. Everything about this day is turning out to be ridiculous. "Your friend here is hurt and in want of a healer. Not to put too fine a point on it," he adds, glancing warily at those intimidating antlers, "but I don't exactly see you strapping him to your back yourself."

The hart snorts again, a little more irritably than before. Is it possible for animals to get offended?

"Throw me off into a convenient ravine and things can only go south from there. You help me, I help him. Sound good?"

After a moment of what must be _astoundingly_ intellectual deliberation, the beast paws at the ground again and turns its flank to Dorian with an expectant look. O... kay. He takes a deep breath. "This, I suspect, is going to be unpleasant for all involved parties." He glances down to the unconscious elf at his feet. "Well. Maybe not _you_. Enjoy the nap."

With some difficulty, he hefts the elf up onto his shoulders, and shuffles his way to the hart. Magnanimously, it bends its knees to put its back in easy reach. Dorian awkwardly lays his charge across the creature's back, arranging him neatly so he won’t slide off. In the process he notices the gloves. His screaming sense of self-preservation, and then later his urgent sense of civic duty, had glossed over the gloves.

They’re white, halla skin perhaps. On the elf’s left hand, a short glove encasing only his first three fingers, which would pull the bowstring. On his right arm, a vambrace laced up to his wrist and secured via a leather thong across his palm, covering only sinewy forearm and the space between forefinger and thumb, where arrow and string would chafe in the firing. “A _ha!_ I was right. I’m always right.” The hart looks at him over its shoulder, startled, and he smiles smugly back. “He’s _left-handed_.”

He wonders later if he imagined the beast rolling its eyes.

Dorian directs his attention to the saddle, reins and stirrups. More to the point: the distressing lack thereof. "I suppose it's a good job I never planned on having children. Such is life, I suppose. Ah, I don't suppose you could get a little lower, so I can climb aboard?" The hart grunts and tosses its head. "... That a no?"

He panics a little when the hart begins moving, stepping lightly across the forest floor so as not to shake loose its master. Instead of taking off into the distance, however, it noses the abandoned bow leaning against a tree root and gives Dorian a pointed look. He sighs. "That big a deal, is it? Alright then." It takes a minute, but he finds a buckled strap on one of the saddlebags that'll do the job of securing the bow. That done, and his own staff stashed neatly on his back, he turns back to find the hart kneeling helpfully. "You're either terribly smart, or a terrible smartass." An offended grunt. "Alright: smart _hart_."

Any illusions he had of the beast's gentle canter making this a comfortable ride are thrown out the window by the time he's passing an old crumbling tower in some important southern hero's Foothold. Dorian reminds himself that he never liked kids anyway, and the process of making them would be distasteful at best. After some trial and error he discovers that guiding his mount is a matter of tapping its neck on the opposite side from where he wants to turn -- figuring that out comes with a lot of circling that leaves them both harried and mutually frustrated, while the elf dozes in silent contentment (Dorian would like to imagine, bloodloss notwithstanding) in his position slung across his belly over the hart's shoulders.

Near sundown, a pass winding northward eventually opens onto what could generously be called civilization. Bonfires built to beat back the onset of the evening chill send pillars of smoke up over rooftop gardens and cast a harsh contrast on the haunted faces of refugees. Dorian is just struggling to figure out how to tell the beast to stop when the clank of armor sets him on edge. Suddenly there are swords leveled on him from several directions, soldiers converging on him from the gathering night, as if he hasn't had enough of that today. In the dim light he sees the Inquisition's ominous heraldry on plate and tabards, and puts his hands up. "A warmer welcome I have never seen," he says amicably. "No trouble, ladies and gents; I just need to get this man to a healer."

"Off the mount, stranger," a surly woman commands, a wicked looking scar biting down her right cheek from temple to jaw. The leader of this unit, perhaps.

"Fair enough, but with no stirrups to ease the way, you should know up front that this is going to involve sudden movements." Dorian smiles charmingly at her.

She's not charmed. " _Down_ , I said."

"I heard." Careful not to dislodge the slumbering elf, he slings one leg over the prone body and hops down lightly. Or it was intended to be light, but a twinge from thigh to groin to other thigh sends him stumbling gracelessly into one of the soldiers. To his credit, the man kindly doesn't run him through on the spot.

Dorian looks up to find two men carefully pulling the elf from his spot on the hart's back and easing him to the ground while his mount snorts anxiously. A torch is held aloft to illuminate prominant ears and straight nose, thickly branching tattoos and wide mouth, short-shorn dark hair and sloping brow. Someone touches the vicious-looking wound on his shoulder, seeping again from all the rough handling. Someone else swears. "Sergeant, this is--"

"I know who he is, private. Get him up to the healer's hut, quickly."

They don't need to be told twice, taking up the task with military efficiency. “Ready lift!” Positions are taken, arms braced under the limp body. “ _Lift_!” He’s up, held parallel to the ground by three stout soldiers. “Ready move! _Move_!” They march quickly away into the dark and are gone.

The woman rounds on Dorian. “Explain.”

“ ‘The sergeant demanded suspiciously of the startlingly handsome altruist who saw the injured to safety,’ “ he grumbles. “There’s a _war_. There were _Templars_. He was _shot_.”

She glares suspiciously, but he’s gotten that from a crackshot elven archer and even a disconcertingly intelligent beast of burden today, so it’s fairly ineffectual. “And you helped because--?”

He smiles again, and again she’s not charmed. “Because I’m _such a nice guy_. Really, don’t look a gift-mage in the mouth. Presuming I knew which end of the bow you point at the bad guys, presuming I shot him, would I bother with the rest?” he asks, gesturing expansively to his blood-soaked robes and the irritable hart.

She considers that for a moment, then gives a tiny nod of agreement. “Guess not. Sleep in the camps if you need, start no trouble, and be on your way at first light. You’re done here.”

“You said it, not me.” With a sardonic flourish, Dorian bows to the sergeant and gives the hart a friendly pat on the rump before limping away in search of the most passing-clean sleeping spot he can manage in the overcrowded refugee camp. He wonders, only briefly, who the elf _was_ to have ignited such alarm in the soldiers, but he supposes it doesn’t matter. For all that it stepped lightly the hart speeded his progress, and he should be at the village gates by sundown tomorrow. There await Felix, Alexius, and whatever Venatori plot his former tutor has gotten himself tangled in.

No need at this point to finish the letter, but as he hunkers down against a low stone wall under his traveling cloak, he passes the time ‘til sleep finds him mentally writing the tale he’ll soon tell Felix.

_I met the most obnoxious elf today..._

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be listing here any and all KMeme prompts I use for inspiration during dry patches.
> 
> None for this chapter.
> 
> Fic title is from "Headlock" by Imogen Heap, prologue title is from the Modest Mouse song of the same name because I'm not feeling very creative today. These may be replaced at a later date.


End file.
